Tuesday, September 13, 2011

A New Addition: EARL !!

We experienced some cat drama this summer when a feral cat delivered four kittens in the crawl space under the house. Mama cat became very protective and aggressive, terrorizing our three outside kitties (ferals that I have caught and gotten altered) to the extent that, sadly, I had to trap her and call animal control. There are way too many feral cats in our town -- grrr! We heard not a peep out of the kittens, and various friends, neighbors and even an exterminator (!) assured me that the kittens were most likely dead, but... a part of me wasn't totally convinced. Three whole days later, I finally heard a faint "mew," and my neighbor Joe (he is small in size) crawled under the house and pulled out one... two... three... FOUR dirty, flea infested, starving, pathetic little 3-4 week old kittens! (Note to self: Always listen to one's own intuition!)

(Post feeding, pre bath)

I rushed to PetSmart and bought kitten formula and a couple of bottles -- Chris and I bottle fed the little furballs, he much better at it than I. They had gone three whole days without eating/drinking. We were amazed that they had managed to survive. Next, it was bathtime. Our animal lover neighbor Bonnie brought over some Dawn dish detergent which apparently is the stuff to use (?). I washed them one by one and was shocked at the amount of fleas, dirt and dried blood (from the fleas) coming off the poor things.

Thankfully, Bonnie agreed to keep the kittens while we were out of town (as in, most of the time!). What a great neighbor! The kittens were thriving and eating/drinking on their own within a few short days.

Bonnie fell in love with the gray 'n white one ("Peanut") and -- yay! -- found a home for the white ("Queen Wilhelmina") and one of the black 'n white ones ("Speeder"). Fillmore, our only indoor kitty, was NOT pleased by the invasion.

We asked everyone we know... and asked 'n begged 'n pleaded... to no avail. No one wanted "Earl," but we were not about to bring him to the shelter, where he would probably be euthanized. Anyway, he was starting to grow on us.

A few more days of being together...

...with Earl trying his hardest to win us over.

The paper recycling box, a favorite play area...

Files are pretty fun too...

Cats are amazing: they immediately took to the SuperScratcher... thankfully, the litter box as well.

On another note, we also had some feral animals outside our front door....a huge mama bear and her 3 cubs! The mama was not much smaller than my VW Golf. The recent fire has driven the animals to find food and these were after our chickens!

I forgot to explain the name... "Speeder and Earl's" is a coffee shop in Burlington, Vermont. Speeder definitely fit the one B&W kitten, and Chris liked the name Earl. Me, I kept thinking of that old Dixie Chicks song "Earl had ta DIE... Goodbyyyyyeeee... Earl!" I was like "Are we really going to name our cat Earl??" Ah well, it kind of fits him. :)